This page: Many vets have a poor
understanding of the realities of the FIV virus. We explain why it
is not their fault, and why you need to know more yourself.

Why do many vets not understand FIV?

Most
of a vet's proficiency comes from the hands-on experience they
gain during the years after qualifying.

When vets qualify from veterinary college, they have leaned the theory
about all animals health, but it is only with the experience they gain
after qualifying that they become really proficient with those animals
they treat.

What experience do
most vets really have of treating FIV cats?

The number of all cats a vet will see will vary depending of the scale
of the practice where they work, but a recent survey suggests that
many vets will see from around ten to over 40 cats per week, some will
see that number every day, which would amount to several thousands of
cats seen in a year.
The same survey suggested that most vets see only a handful FIV cats
per year - even those vets who deal with one of the major animal
charities will only see a small number compared to non-FIV cats, so,
by any measure, a vet's experience of FIV cats is tiny compared to
their total work load.

Considering that vets are taught the theory at college and then learn
from hands-on experience over the following years, it is hardly
surprising that, having not had the experience of FIV cats to learn
the realities of the virus, they are restricted to 'text-book'
reactions to the virus.

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When you then consider, of the small number of FIV cats a vet sees,
there is a high probability that they were only known to be FIV
because there was a reason to test them; for instance, they may have
been an un-neutered stray, possibly in poor condition, or they may be
a cat for whom an infection is taking an unusually long time to clear
up, so they test for FIV as a possible reason.

So, of the small number of FIV cats they do see, there is a good
chance they will be in poor condition or in some other way unwell. It
is therefore not surprising that many vets have the impression that is
the norm for FIV cats.

However, the overall prevalence of FIV varies from location to
location, but the most recent figures we have seen for the UK the
percentage of FIV cats in the overall rescue population varies between
1% and 8% with an average of just over 3% - so the likelihood is
that the number of FIV cats actually seen by the vets is much higher
than they think (3% of several thousand is a lot higher than the
handful they know about). The point being that most are not known to
be FIV+ because there is no reason for them to be tested.

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So what do vets do
then?

Most vets recognise that they have little real experience of FIV cats,
so will turn to other sources for their information; often that would
be the papers published by the 'Official Bodies' such as ABCD
(European Advisory Board for Cat Diseases); ICC (International Cat
Care - used to be FAB Feline Advisory Bureau); AAFP (American
Association of Feline Practitioners).

The problem here is that these bodies are made up of vets and
scientists, who also have limited real hands-on experience of FIV
cats, so they produce reports which are based mainly on all the
scientific papers they can find on the subject.

The problem is then compounded by the fact that the majority of these
scientific studies and based on very small sample numbers, and often
using cats that are artificially infected in the lab with large doses
of highly virulent strains of the virus, which then cause reactions
that are not typical of real-life infection of field strain virus in
minute volume.

This means the majority of these papers will not be representative of
the virus in normal circumstances, so any conclusions made either in
the papers themselves, or by those who collect them together for their
reports will also not be representative of the virus in real life
situations; yet this is all the vets have to provide them with
information about FIV!

It is hardly surprising, therefore, that the vast majority of vets
don't have the in-depth understanding of the true implications of the
virus.

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This is one reason
for our '1,000 FIV cats project'

Although not a scientific study, our project is a survey of real-life
FIV cats, naturally-infected, living normal domestic lives. The fact
that we have many hundreds of individual FIV cats now listed on the
project, begins to provide at least an indication of how these cats
are really affected by the virus over many years.

Basic results show that the two main worries vets have about the virus
are not supported by the evidence of experience. The two main worries
being that cats with FIV have a poor immune system which leads to many
health problems; and that FIV cats provide a danger of transmitting
the virus to other cats in the household - neither of these worries
seem to be true in the cases of these hundreds of project cats.